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Culture: Richard Brooks: Biteback

Jane Mulvagh wrote a much-praised biography of Vivienne Westwood six years ago. Now it’s out in paperback in time for the big Westwood exhibition that opens this week at London’s V&A. The back cover plugs the show, as does Mulvagh’s preface.

So you might expect that the book will be sold in the exhibition shop. Er, no. It’s been banned. Not that the book is nasty about the clothes designer: it’s just that the ultrasensitive Westwood never wanted it written, and certainly doesn’t want it on sale at her show.

Shame. All the more so because Mulvagh has a long association with the V&A. Instead, the museum is publishing its own glossy book about Westwood, with the designer writing her own foreword, selecting all the illustrations and approving the text by the retrospective’s curator, Claire Wilcox.

To add insult to Mulvagh’s injury, Wilcox even had to tell Westwood’s biographer that